1. Field of the Invention
The system of the present invention relates to money values. More particularly, the system of the present invention relates to a process for instructing students concerning money and its value, and a multi-tiered approach to instructing students on the value of various increasing denominations of money and its relationship to products or services.
2. General Background
One of the most vital concerns of teaching students is development of a student's appreciation of the value of money. It is often a difficult task to instruct a person regarding the various money denominations, including money in the form of coins or paper money, and to properly instruct the student on the ever-increasing amounts of money required for the purchase of certain goods or services. In today's society, it is imperative that students be fully cognizant of the value of money, and the manner in which the various denominations of money are combined to pay for those certain goods or services.
It is standard in the schools that the manner for teaching the value of money is done on a very traditional basis, in that the basic coin or paper denominations are introduced to the student, and the student is expected to combine these denominations utilizing the present mathematical system of addition, to obtain a sum necessary for the purchase sum. However, this system has been found to have shortcomings in that the student, for the most part, under that system, cannot adequately determine for himself, the proper combination of coins or paper money required to obtain various amounts and, therefore, never truly understands the basic principles of the American money system, which, of course, would plague him the rest of his adult life.
There have been several patents awarded in the area of money recognition, the most pertinent being as follows.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,768,177, entitled "Educational Device", addresses a composite education and amusement kit to provide amusement in training a child to produce finished pictorial representations or to learn numerical and letter sequences. One of the objects of the system is to teach, in a crude form, the counting of money.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,195,423, entitled "Pop-Up Cash Register", relates to a system which is similar to a cash register and depicts pictures or replicas of merchandise coordinated with the dollar and cent values together with the total sum and their money values including program channels associated for controlling operation of the toy register.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,904,899, entitled "Educational Banking Game for Teaching Children Good Thrift Habits", relates to an educational banking game for children that attempts to teach good thrift habits as well as an appreciation of the way in which a bank checking system operates. The system includes a bank kit having a check book, play checks and stubs for counting, envelopes, savings account passbook, coin bank and pen. The invention relates to the system in which the kit is utilized.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,571,189, entitled "System for Teaching Coin Relationships", relates to providing a system for teaching skills in handling coins and bills to students with limited learning capability including coin identification and comparative coin values, coin equivalences, and making change of certain coin amounts.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,488,864, entitled "Device for Teaching Monetary Skills", provides an elongated channel for receiving one cent pieces from a communicated storage compartment. The bottom of the channel is provided with numerals which are so spaced that they are concluded as the one cent pieces are moved from the storage area to the channel and can receive ten (10) one cent pieces.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,690,017, entitled "Coin Value Teaching Device", relates to providing a coin value teaching apparatus which is effective in teaching children not only how to count coins but how to make change with respect to such coins. There is included a rectangular number board having an upper surface arranged in squares each having a number therein, with the squares numbered from one to one hundred for representing coins that would be placed upon the board to determine the ultimate value.